As for whether this industrial equipment would help other countries develop their industries, that was not within the East African government's scope of consideration. After all, East Africa was far from the only seller on the international market.
In recent years, the industries of many non-great-power nations had made progress, and their industrial equipment came from a motley assortment of sources—Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Austria, and more. If they paid enough, there were channels even for the most advanced machinery.
For those non-industrial nations, it was not that they could not obtain the technology and equipment needed for industrial development. Rather, they lacked independent R&D capabilities, industrial systems, and the capacity for independent development.
Without independent R&D, their industries would forever lag a step behind others technologically. Without an industrial system, they could not compress production costs and found it difficult to become competitive.
Finally, they lacked the ability to develop independently. Some countries might have been capable of developing their industries well, yet external forces obstructed their progress, and their momentum could easily be interrupted.
Thus, for a nation to transform from an agricultural country into an industrial one was extraordinarily difficult. One wrong step, and it might be smashed to pieces and reduced to dust.
As a small Latin American country, Paraguay would likewise find it far from easy to achieve anything in industry, yet it had no choice but to try.
Leaving aside Paraguay's historical grudges with Argentina and Brazil, Bolivia's provocations against present-day Paraguay alone required Paraguay to rearm itself and thereby gain the upper hand in territorial disputes.
Thus, after its population had recovered somewhat in recent years, the Paraguayan government restarted some of its plans for domestic industrial development.
In this regard, the Paraguayan government was far more vigilant in times of